Bravo: A perfect retirement: Theater and fly fishing

They say that one should have a hobby or special interest to fill one’s time upon retirement. Goal-oriented, engaging activities should be found, they say, and leisure interests should be pursued. Keep the mind and body active, they say.

Well, as of 2021, my wife, Sandy, and I have had the good fortune to count ourselves among those so graciously referred to as “retirees.” Both of us spent over 35 years in public education and, as Sandy puts it, we “got out a little early for good behavior.”

We didn’t need to look far to find fulfilling post-retirement activities, though. Our involvement with the Warehouse Theatre Company has kept us fully engaged. I used to chuckle when retired former colleagues — folks who had earned the right to kick back and relax — would say they had “never been so busy.” Now I know what they meant.

Our other great passion is fly fishing. Engaging? Well, it’s not at all uncommon to experience a kind of time warp on the water, feeling like minutes have gone by when it’s actually been hours. As for being goal-oriented, it’s tough to beat: “Catch a fish.” Honestly, it’s the opposite of work.

Clearly, seeing theater and going fishing can be accomplished close to home. But another piece of retirement advice — advice that borders on insistence — is travel. “Are you going to travel?” “Where are you traveling?” “Now you’ll have a chance to travel!”

Apparently, that’s another thing one should do in one’s golden years.

Retiring during a pandemic can limit your options, but it does allow for planning. And that’s how Sandy came up with just the right focus for our post-career years: “Catch a show and catch a fish in all 50 states.”

How’s that for a retirement goal? Ambitious, yet seemingly doable. Friends are quick to point out that the theater part might be easy enough, but the fish have something to say about being caught.

Be that as it may, on July 13 — after taking in the opening night performance of “Once Upon a Mattress” at the Warehouse Theatre — Sandy and I set out for parts east on a weeks-long trip that will eventually take us to Maine and back with specific plays booked and specific fishing holes scoped.

Our motto when we began was: “It’s all about the cast.” While that has largely held true for fly fishing, we’ve had a bit of a shift in our thinking regarding theater. Having a talented cast is a tremendous asset, to be sure. But we’ve come to believe that there are two key elements that make the true difference between a great theater experience and one that falls flat: story and audience.

Mary-Anne Van Degna, president of the Dorset, Vt., theatre board, crystalized that notion in her program notes, saying that we all need story: “It’s necessary for our survival and the overall health of our communities. Theatre, in all of its forms, translates, transports, and teaches us about the world beyond our neighborhoods as well as the world inside ourselves.” She adds: “It can exist only in partnership with you, the theatregoer. And that makes you not just special and important, but an absolutely necessary and crucial element of the theatrical experience.”

Her notes swirled around in our heads as we drove between Manchester, Vt., and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. They were underlined by a biographical video on Rockwell looping in an exhibition space, where we heard a recording of Rockwell himself saying, “The story is the first thing and the last thing.” Surrounded by vintage displays of Saturday Evening Post editions spanning decades, each featuring a slice of American life of the time, it was easy to see what he meant. Though the art critics never fully embraced him, the public did. His images were their lives on canvas, even if the world he portrayed was perhaps simpler and more innocent than reality.

The same can be said of theater. Plays are a version of the world that isn’t real, but they represent a possible reality. Paintings and plays both require an audience to interpret them, to absorb them, and to translate them into meaning. In the process, the painting or the play becomes part of the viewer’s story as well and lives on beyond the viewing.

Across the country, this exchange goes on nearly every day. From Cody, Wyo., to Pittsfield, Mass., we’ve sat among people who’ve been seeking out stories. From Rapid City, S.D., to Ogunquit, Maine, from North Tonawanda, N.Y. to Wakefield, R.I., people have gathered at a given time in a given place to bear witness.

As an industry, live theater has not yet returned to pre-pandemic attendance levels. Houses have been roughly 80% full (which makes the 98% capacity crowds at the Warehouse Theatre performances of “Once Upon a Mattress” even more remarkable). But every house has one thing in common: love for a good story well told. In fact, every person in every audience is willing to put real life on hold just to peek in on a fictional one.

And the truth is that same experience is there for you, too. Whether it’s at the Warehouse Theatre, another community theater in the area, The Capitol Theatre or a local high school, you can be the “crucial element of a theatrical experience.”

Maybe it’s fitting that the last show we saw prior to this column’s deadline was Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will,” a play the WTC produced last February. The second act opens with an exchange between John Hemmings and Henry Condell in which Condell explains why theater is important; that theater lets us “feel again.” He says that in attending a play, “you will test your heart against trouble and joy, and every time you’ll feel a flicker or a fountain of feeling that reminds you that, yes, you are yet living.”

When we return to Yakima, Sandy and I will have had the great good fortune to experience flickers and fountains of feeling in 14 states across our wonderful country. Absorbing these stories has made our own story so much richer.

Oh, and as for fishing … there’s a story or two to be told about that, too.

• Vance Jennings is executive director of the Warehouse Theatre Company. The company contributes a column in Explore every four weeks.

Summer 2023 road trip

• July 13: “Once Upon a Mattress,” Warehouse Theatre Company, Yakima.

• July 15: “Wild West Spectacular: The Musical,” Cody Theatre, Cody, Wyo.

• July 18: “The Drowsy Chaperone,” Black Hills Playhouse, Rapid City, S.D.

• July 20: “Vanya, and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” Okoboji Summer Theatre, Okoboji, Iowa

• July 22: “Women in Jeopardy,” Commonweal Theatre Company, Lanesboro, Minn.

• July 25: “9 to 5,” Timber Lake Playhouse, Mount Carroll, Ill.

• July 26: “Our Town,” American Players Theatre, Spring Green, Wis.

• July 28: “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” Ghostlight Theatre, North Tonawanda, N.Y.

• July 29: “Still,” Dorset Playhouse, Dorset, Vt.

• Aug. 1: “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield, Mass.

• Aug. 3: “On Your Feet!” Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit, Maine

• Aug. 5: “The Book of Will,” Contemporary Theatre Company, Wakefield, R.I.

• Aug. 8: “Pipeline,” Peterborough Players Theatre, Peterborough, N.H.

• Aug. 9: “Summer Stock,” Goodspeed Opera House, East Haddam, Conn.

• Aug. 12: “Much Ado About Nothing,” Gettysburg Community Theatre, Gettysburg, Penn.